Epitaph
by Aanix
Summary: A look at how the original Scoobies (Xander, Willow, and Giles) came up with the words on Buffy's tombstone. Set after "The Gift," kind of a missing scene. Please R&R :)


It felt like some kind of weird dream, to tell the truth. He kept expecting to see Snyder come running through the front door dressed in drag and singing something by Streisand—at least then he would know it was just a dream. At least then he could lay to rest that twisting feeling in his gut and wait for his alarm to go off so he could wake up to a cup of coffee and Anya and look forward to a Scoobie meeting about some no fuss demon they could beat in time for pizza and an eighties nostalgia movie night. Nothing apocalyptic, just your run-of-the-mill drown it, whack it, stake it, all round good time. Something—anything—that didn't end with him sitting at Buffy's kitchen table discussing the details of her funeral over his third cup of coffee and a lifetime's worth of photo albums featuring a smile-clad Buffster looking up at him as if she was just hiding there in those pictures and she'd show up in a day, or two, or something and tell them all how it was just some big misunderstanding and that wasn't her body they were burying.   
  
Xander mulled through the pictures in front of him, baby Buffy, pigtailed Buffy, Buffy on Santa's lap. He sipped his coffee and tried not to think about it all. They just needed to find a picture to put by her coffin during the funeral, something simple and… well, something simple was all he could think of. It was just—there wasn't any picture that really fit that description. They all had their own stories and stuff, most of which Xander knew and could by no means label simple or discreet. Even the school photos had their own little tales, it seemed kind of cheap to use them out of context like that.   
  
He went to take another sip of his coffee, but caught a glimpse of Willow, who was sitting across the table. She just sat there, staring at the picture in front of her, not moving.   
  
"You okay, Will?" he asked, setting down his coffee without drinking.  
  
She seemed startled for a moment, then gestured at the picture, "It's… um," she took a breath, "It's our prom picture." She made an attempt at a smile, and nodded her head a little, looking back down at the photo.   
  
"Right…Prom." He said, bringing his attention back to his own album. He tried to forget about that one for the time being, and just focus on the search, but he kept staring at the stuffed animal in one of the baby pictures just so he'd have a focal point and he wouldn't have to look at another smiling face when all he felt like doing was causing some severe property damage to the entire room. He just kind of stared in silence for a while, hoping he could regain a little footing for once.  
  
"You know what? This sucks," he announced, closing the photo album in front of his and pushing it toward the middle of the table. "This whole thing, the pictures and the flowers and the arrangements and all of this crap, it just—it sucks."  
  
"I know Xander, but we have—we have to do something," she set the Prom picture she still had in her down onto the table, "I mean… I think she would have wanted us to do something."  
  
"Yah, but what if we're jumping the gun here, I mean, we've seen some pretty weird stuff, and I know I'm not the only one who thought Glory was a little phony. I—I mean, couldn't it have just been some big light show, you know, smoke and mirrors and magic potions and all that—"  
  
"Xander…" Willow interrupted.  
  
"I know…" he conceded, "I uh—I just kind of needed to here me say all that. It's all been bouncing around in my head for a while."  
  
"Me too," Willow said, this time her smile making it all the way across her face, "only I didn't really think it was a light show… just maybe a dream or—or that we'd accidentally mistaken her for the Bot or something… but I—I checked and she's um… she was all wire free."  
  
"You checked?" he asked.  
  
"See, you're not the only one who's a little crazy right now."  
  
"Good to know I'm not riding solo on the train to looney-ville," he smiled back at her.   
  
There was a long silence as they sat at the table, not touching the pictures but just staring down at them, as if they were both hoping the task would disappear.  
  
"I don't want to do this," Willow finally admitted. "It's so stupid, we all know what she looks like, we don't need this, it's just—it's a waste of time." She slammed her album closed. "And it's kind of—"  
  
"Like ow?" Xander finished for her.  
  
"Big ow, *major* ow," she replied.   
  
"I know how you feel."  
  
They both looked up as Giles came through the kitchen door, switching off the phone and leaning against the end table behind him. He breathed deep and closed his eyes for a second, before setting the phone down on the table and sitting in between Xander and Willow.  
  
He took a moment to begin, but finally got out the gist of what the phone call had entailed. "Her, um," he cleared his throat, "her tombstone will be here in a few days."  
  
"Oh," Willow said, seemingly trying to fill the silence because no one was saying anything. "Was that it?"  
  
"Well—well actually, no, and that brings me to the point," Giles replied, taking off his glasses as he leaned forward onto the table, resting his weight on his elbow and pressing his thumb and forefinger into his sinuses. He put his glasses back on and continued "We… we need to decided what we're going to put on it—for an epitaph."  
  
"Oh," Xander turned back to pretending to look at the pictures.   
  
"What kind of stuff were you thinking?" Willow asked.   
  
"Uh…well, it has her name at—at the top, then her… um… her dates," Giles seemed to stumble a little over the words, but he was still doing better with the subject than the rest of them.  
  
"Right… her dates." Willow echoed him. She paused for a few seconds. "But, I mean, what can we really say? What are we really *allowed* to say?"  
  
Xander and Giles looked at her, just slightly puzzled.   
  
"It's just… she did all this stuff, this really huge and important stuff, and we can't say anything about it. Nobody's gonna know."  
  
"We'll just have to make it about the other things she did. She was a beloved sister to Dawn, a devoted friend to all of us—"  
  
"Yah, but all those times she kicked otherworldly butt, she saved our lives, she helped everyone… that's a big part of who she was. Isn't that what that whole thing's about? 'Beloved sister, Devoted friend' yah, but she was also a Demon Slicer-Dicer and an End-of-the-World-Stopper-Gal. All the rest of this stuff is so not Buffy. The smiley picture and the flowers and the nice preacher guy to say something pretty, none of it is like Buffy at all. I just—I think that if the words on that tombstone and whatever's under it is all that's going to be left… I just think it should mean something."  
  
Giles lowered his head a little, "Yes, um… I think she'd like that."  
  
"So what are we going to say?" Willow asked, "Vampire Slayer really doesn't cut if you ask me, she did a lot more than just dust vamps when she was ali—when she was here."  
  
Giles smiled, "She, uh…she saved the world."  
  
"…a lot," Xander and Willow added in unison.   
  
They all looked at each other for a few seconds, then turned their heads downward, Giles to clean his glasses, Willow picking up the Prom photo once again, and smiling a little, and Xander just reminiscing about all those averted apocalypses, all those times she'd saved the world.   
  
"Yah, um… that should do it." 


End file.
